A Toast to Clarke Ingram leads to impromptu tower tour

File this under “better late than never”.

Approximately 57 weeks after his death, a group of friends and colleagues got together to celebrate the life of Clarke Ingram. While many of us were at his viewing held shortly after his death we felt we needed to do something more to remember him. But life circumstances on the part of all parties, delayed our get-together. In the spirit of Clarke, we decided to do a “Radio Christmas Lunch” very similar to ones he used to host at a small dinner in New Alexandria years ago.

On Saturday, eight radio geeks and one understanding and encouraging wife got together for The Inaugural Clarke W. Ingram Memorial Christmas Lunch at Hoss’s in Murrysville.

How I managed to become the “party planner”, I’ll never know, but we had such a fun time we’re going to turn this into an annual event and I will do my best to make sure all of Clarke’s friends get an invite!

This event happened to fall on one of Pittsburgh’s finest December days – partly sunny and near 60°. Scott Fybush drove in from Rochester, New York to attend, and Chuck Leavens, owner of WZUM and Pittsburgh Public Media was there, too. Hmmmmm… what does one do on a nice day with these two present? Why you go to tower sites, of course!

Annie, my wife, deserves a huge kudos for letting me enjoy an afternoon of geekery which was, for us, conveniently on the same route back to the PBRTV World HQ!

First stop: the 1550/660 tower site on Yost Boulevard in Forest Hills. The tower is short and seemingly thinner than like towers. Leavens said at one time it was a much taller tower located a little higher up on the hill from where the current one sits.

1550, of course, has been licensed to Braddock since 1947 when it was WLOA, just a *few* (and then some) callsigns later it is WZUM. Meanwhile 660 – still owned by Martz Communications – is WAMO licensed to Wilkinsburg today, but it was originally WFJY 1470 in Portage, Pennsylvania. We understand a recent deal for Pittsburgh Public Media to purchase 660 fell through and WAMO remains under the ownership of Martz and programming management of Audacy, Inc. with FM translator W297BU (107.3 Pittsburgh).

Speaking of FM translators, we needed to head over to Shreve Street high atop Pittsburgh’s North Side before the sun went down to check out the site for WZUM’s FM translator W266CV (101.1 Braddock). You know the tower I’m talking about – the tall silver one between Spring Hill and Spring Garden, just south of Northview Heights. It’s one of the highest points in Allegheny County

The tower is owned and operated by Crown Castle and is still relatively new. It was constructed in 1997 and was one of the first in the downtown region to have daytime strobe lights as I recall. You might call the building at the bottom of the tower, a one-story “apartment building”. There are doors on all four sides, one of which holds iHeart Media stations represented there, another for Audacy, etc.

WZUM’s FM translator – W266CV shares a fraction of one of these “apartments” with several other connections including one of WTAE-TV’s tower cameras around town, and the communication relays for city school busses and emergency vehicles. And yes, we stood (a few feet away) at the base of the tower itself!

Stations broadcasting from this tower include WPKV (98.3 Duquesne – EMF); WBZZ (100.7 New Kensington); WPGB (104.7), and WDSY (107.9). In addition to W266CV, other translators are EMF owned W240CT (88.7); Forever-owned W288BO (105.5); and Martz-owned; Audacy operated W261AX (100.1). In addition there are STLs and RPUs and the 2-way communications I mentioned earlier.

When we walked out after seeing the equipment room, Chuck showed us a mound of land just beyond the barbed wire fence surrounding the property. “That spot was, at one time, the auxiliary site for WEEP (1080; now WWNL),” he said. A little research proves the property at 2500 East Lane was, in fact, such. Although 1080’s daytime-only, 4-tower site is at the end of Lah Road in Hampton Township.

The free-standing tower that once stood there is long gone, however, Chuck said there is just a large hole in the ground in its place where he has found it has been filled with old radio equipment that nobody seemed to want anymore. Sad though it may be, I’d like to think the equipment is holding the mound together and continues to serve a purpose.

This day was very Clarke Ingram-esque and therefore quite the appropriate celebration. It also occurs to me that the very first time I met Clarke in late-2000/early 2001, we along with Jason Togyer met for lunch at the Olive Garden in Green Tree. Lunch was followed by the search for the 3-tower array for the now-long-deleted WZUM (1590 Carnegie) which we found! Clarke would eventually revive the call letters for 1550 soon after 1590’s deletion. Saturday we came full circle!